Malcolm X: What is your real name?

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Malcolm X: If a Chinese person were to say his name was Patrick Murphy, you would look at him like he’s insane, because Murphy is an Irish name, a European name, or the name that has a Caucasian or White background and a yellow person-Chinese is a yellow man-and he has nothing to do or no connection whatsoever with the name Murphy, and if it doesn’t look proper for a person who is yellow, or Chinese, to be walking around named Murphy or Jones or Johnson or Bunche or Powell, I think it would be just as improper for a Black person or the so-called Negro in this country, as we’re taught by the honorable Elijah Muhammad, to walk around with these names and therefore he teaches us that during slavery, the same slave master who owned us put his last name on us to denote that we were his property. So that when you see a Negro today who’s named Johnson, if you go back in his history, you’ll find that he was once, his grandfather or one of his forefathers, was owned by a White man who was named Johnson. If his name is Bunche, his grandfather was owned by a White man that was named Bunche…

O’Connor: I get the point. Well, would you mind telling me what your father’s last name was?
Malcolm X: My father didn’t know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather and his grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slave master. The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery.
O’Connor: Was there any line, any point in the genealogy of your family when you did have to use a last name and if so, what was it?
Malcolm X: The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse to…
O’Connor: You mean, you won’t even tell me what your father’s supposed last name was or gifted last name was?

Malcolm X: I never acknowledge it whatsoever.
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